Cakestar – The Eights [REVIEW]

by Umang on October 6, 2013

Chris from Cakestar sent me their “The Eights” t-shirt for a review. The t-shirt arrived in a nondescript manila envelop with no indication of the Cakestar brand. To my pleasant surprise the t-shirt inside was neatly packaged with their business card and stickers. They have their own custom, sewn on label, a detail which is usually skipped due to the cost and production intricacies. The one detail that caught my attention was the “light bulb” shaped safety pin which attaches their custom hang tag to their label. I will have a to do a search on that product. I am a little confused as to why the Empire State Building adorns a California based t-shirt company’s t-shirt but then again, what’s not to like about the iconic building?

The t-shirt itself feels solid at 7.1 ounces of combed cotton. To break this down in layman terms, imagine a “Hanes Beefy-T” but super soft. The trend for indie t-shirt brands tend t0 be around the 5 ounces or less so this was another surprise. If you like heavier cotton indie t-shirts, than this is the brand for you. This t-shirt is sure to have a longer shelf life through multiple washes.

Please excuse the “gray” looking washed out picture above. Make no mistake that the t-shirt is black. The print quality of their water based screen printing is impeccable. There is no sign of offsetting through multiple passes of screen printing process. This is tough to achieve on a dark shirt with two colors (dark gray and turquoise) and fine detailing. According to Cakestar’s website, they use a “discharging” method for their dark colored shirts. The water based ink leaves a soft feel, unlike “Plasticol” based inks.

In summary, Cakestar has not cut any corners and retailing a superior product. For an indie brand, who’s site went live on November 11, 2011 they paid attention to the details before going down the path of trial and error.